Miles today: 20
Trail miles sum: 2016.8
SOBO Trail location: 1322.8
Elevation: 5051
Spinning on the turntable: Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466. Seong-Jin Cho

It was 26 degrees this morning when I started hiking. Just a tiny bit nippy!

I’m such a sucker for sunrise pictures! I’m pleased to have my point and shoot camera back from Sony repair. It feels right in my hand. I’m complete again as a hiker.

I’m hiking near the Boiling Lake Spring today. I could smell the Sulphur before I reached the lake.

I can hear the hiss and burbles of stream escaping the lakeside mud before I can actually see the lakeside shore.

The fields of green are long gone, replaced by fields of brown.

After I left the lake I continued to climb up the mountain following the PCT signs….which was good….until I took the PCT North trail without thinking. I’m now hiking the PCT as a SOBO.

An hour and a half later I found myself back at Boiling Springs Lake!

Thus far this morning, after two hours, I was less than a mile from where I began the day. After a tremendous amount of wailing, gnashing of teeth and stomping of my feet I did the only thing I could do. I turned around, aimed myself in the correct direction and resumed hiking.

After a long uphill slog I found myself back at the trail branch where I followed the north leg instead of the south leg of the trail. I followed the correct loop the second time around.

Yet somehow, even with checking the map multiple times, I ended up headed towards the geyser instead of hiking on the PCT. When I realized I had again taken the wrong trail I only had .1 mile left to reach the geyser. With only .1 miles left to the trail head I opted to just keep hiking.

The geyser was, well…

Less than exciting. It was really just a big load of steam coming out from the rocks. Not very exciting.

What I thought would be a easy day of hiking of 20 miles turned into a longer day of hiking due to my multiple trail following errors. I’m guessing I actually hiked closer to 26 or 27 miles.

The views continue to be spectacular! The weather in the afternoon is in the mid-60’s with sunshine. I can feel my suntan returning!

Viva California sunshine!

Noelle hiked out to meet me and we chatted as we made our way to the trail head. It was nice for a change to have a trail wide enough for us to walk side by side.